Monday 31 December 2007

Dalek Warning

I wrote a few months ago about Dalek activities in Manchester (Click here for the original report). I observed that Daleks now appear to vary in size, colouration and even design. Was this, I wondered, the result of inter-breeding or merely the effect of off-shoring manufacture to the Far East? Later in the year, during a visit to Japan, I uncovered disconcerting evidence that Dalek plans may be more advanced than I suspected. In a dark corner of the Edo Tokyo Museum, I found what purported to be an early public telephone and kiosk. Certainly, as the photograph shows, there was some sort of equipment within the structure but do they really expect us to believe that it's a telephone?

Well, I put my concerns to the back of my mind but, the very next day, as I explored the Yamate district of Yokohama, I came upon incontrovertible evidence of what is happening in Japan. There, in plain view on the street, was another of these so-called public telephones. I accept that it does not quite have the classic lines of the original Daleks but I'm sure you will agree that the sense of menace is unmistakeable. Are we so easily fooled by labelling them (in English, mark you) 'TELEPHONE'?

Somewhat shaken, I continued my holiday, but I was confronted a few days later with further evidence of the spread of the mutant Daleks when I chanced upon another example in Meiji-Mura.

You have been warned! By the way, I'm not too sure about Japanese developments in Post Boxes, either. What do you think?